e man who had sold her that incomparable gingerbread--Monsieur
had half of it still in his pocket.

But it was curious to see the gingerbread-man from this side. Here was
something quite different from the smiling obsequiousness which had said
so many pretty things to her pretty face, and had been so unwearied in
belauding the gingerbread--which really was excellent.

Now he sat crouched together, eating some indescribable mess out of a
checked pocket-handkerchief--eagerly, greedily, without looking up.

Farther down they heard a muffled conversation. Madame was bent upon
peeping in; Monsieur objected, but he had to give in.

An old mountebank sat counting a handful of coppers, grumbling and
growling the while. A young girl stood before him, shivering and
pleading for pardon; she was wrapped in a long water-proof.

The man swore, and stamped on the ground. Then she threw off the
water-proof and stood half naked in a sort of ballet costume. Without
saying a word, and without smoothing her hair or preening her finery,
she mounted the little steps that led to the stage.

At that moment she turned and looked at her father. Her face had already
put on the ballet-simper, but it now gave place to a quite different
expression. The mouth remained fixed, but the eyes tried, for a second,
to send him a beseeching smile. The mountebank shrugged his shoulders,
and held out his hand with the coppers; the girl turned, ducked under
the curtain, and was received with shouts and applause.

Beside the great oak-tree the lottery man was holding forth as fluently
as ever. His witticisms, as the darkness thickened, grew less and less
dubious. There was a different ring, too, in the laughter of the crowd;
the men were noisier, the mountebanks leaner, the women more brazen, the
music falser--so it seemed, at least, to Madame and Monsieur.

As they passed the dancing-tent the racket of a quadrille reached their
ears. "Great heavens!--was it really there that we danced?" said Madame,
and nestled closer to her husband.

They made their way through the rout as quickly as they could; they
would soon reach their carriage, it was just beyond the circus-marquee.
It would be nice to rest and escape from all this hubbub.

The platform in front of the circus-marquee was now vacant. Inside, in
the dim and stifling rotunda, the performance was in full swing.

Only the old woman who sold the tickets sat asleep at her desk. And a
little way off, i